THE CHILDREN'S GROWTH

The gospel-writer, Luke, who records most about the early life of Jesus tells us that as a child He grew and became strong in spirit. He was greater even than John the baptist who also grew up normally as a child but who was made strong in spirit. No doubt this was for his special service later on of making ready for the Lord a prepared people, but it also teaches us that heaven watches us grow, not only in our bodies, but in our spirits where we first have to do with God.

This kind of growth therefore is by the true knowledge of God which comes through His word in the Scriptures. Timothy in childhood had known the sacred letters which would develop him in this way - but by faith in Christ Jesus. Although the Lord in His life here has left us a model, it is by knowing Him in glory that the result in us is increase in soul and spirit. A child growing in the normal way becomes first able to reach up and touch a thing and then to grasp it.

Timothy, although no longer very young, was told by Paul to seize eternal life which he had already known about.

A lesson we can learn from the creation around us is that a believer, like a tree, must take root downward before being able to bear fruit upward. With Samuel this unseen growth was by his secret knowledge of God - as the deep, spreading roots of a fruit-tree bring it strength and food. Paul wrote about being rooted in love - which is like the fine net-work of roots near the surface which benefit by the sunshine, air and rain to give quality and flavour to the fruits.

No doubt you can think of a number of kinds of fruit mentioned in the Bible, each of which has a distinct meaning.

Our heavenly Father looks for us to grow up to the standard of His thoughts for us. When the boy Samuel's mother came each year to see him she would expect him to fit the new coat and not the new coat to fit him! No doubt each coat was perfectly made but had some new feature of which he should be worthy. There have been times when God's work has depended on quite young persons such as Miriam, Samuel, the shepherd-boy David, Ahimaaz and Jonathan, the little maid in Naaman's house, the little boy with loaves and fishes and Paul's nephew. Can He depend on you?

J.C.Evershed